Gift wrapping to make the day even more special

It seems that at least once a year a Birthday will come around – ok well I am being silly about that. Yes they come around every year! Even though I was present for the birth, I am reminded weekly for a month before. Even though I know what month I am in, I still manage to get scatter brained and do things at the last minute. At least for one person this year it was slightly different!

This year I happened to go shopping with my daughter about a week before her birthday. She is an adult, married and living on her own so this was an enjoyable rarity for me. We walked and talked, she showed me a few things that she would like to have with the phrase “My birthday’s coming up Mom!!” attached to each item.

I decided on an item that she had ‘sort of’ selected. It was a 165 piece sewing kit. Most of us got one of those nifty sewing boxes then had to spend tons of money to fill it. This has everything included. There were about 50 spools of thread, scissors, tape measure, thimbles, needles, pins, buttons etc. Plus there were spaces in the box for the things you want to add in the future.

I am a crafter of all sorts so this to me was a pretty cool idea, at least something just to get her started.

She has decided that she’d like to try her hand at quilting. Not machine quilting like I do, but old fashioned quilting like they did ‘back in the day’ before people could afford sewing machines. What a task she has decided upon!! I’ve done it myself and it’s not something that the meek should try.

She stopped over 2 days before her birthday and because her Dad was here I almost caved in and gave her the present. It wasn’t wrapped, it wasn’t in a bag, just tucked away in my room waiting for her day. I am SO glad I didn’t cave!!!

On the day of her birthday I called to see what her plans were, she wasn’t going anywhere special so I could take my time in what I wanted to do.

I wanted to add to her present. The first thing I did was look up a few patterns online that work well with hand sewing. I printed them off and stapled them together. Then I took some cardboard and cut out templates that she could use of various sizes that might go along with the patterns I printed off. I then carefully opened the box and tucked everything inside.

Now here comes the good part!

Most of us have gotten so used to buying those pretty bags (that have really went up in price), along with a package of tissue paper. Then just dump in the gift, top it off with paper and viola` a ‘wrapped’ present, most of the time the bag just gets tossed in the garbage anyway. Oh I’ve saved them for years only to not be able to find them when I need to, they get torn and ruined before I can reuse them.

Because I added to the gift I didn’t just want to hand it over un-wrapped nor did I have a bag handy. But I did have some newspaper, tissue paper and some tape. I had a plan! The box was bigger than the newspaper pieces so I put on one sheet at a time until the whole box was covered. I used some crochet thread to tie it off, and then I topped it off with a fan-folded tissue paper bow!

As I was wrapping I got to thinking how much fun it is to unwrap a gift. Getting a gift is fine, but unwrapping is where the fun is! The excitement of seeing a wrapped present then slowly peeling back the paper (some folks do it quickly) is where the anticipation is. The giver then gets a little anticipation as well in watching the present being opened.

Here is my ‘recipe’ for a fun way to wrap a present!

Most towns now have one of those ‘freebie’ papers, some are called ‘shopper’. They are filled with ads and all sorts of cool stuff that one goes to look for what it is they want.

Open your shopper in the middle, if there are staples, take them out! Set your package in the middle and pull up the sides of the paper, fold down the corners and tape. Rotate your package and repeat until the entire package is covered with the paper. No one says it has to be neat, but if you wish make it so!

Take a long piece of some string, thread, yarn, ribbon or whatever you have on hand, put it over the top, take it down to the bottom cross over and bring it back up to the top on the other side of the package – tie it off, make a bow if you wish.

Now to make the tissue paper bow – Most of us at one time or another have made a tissue flower from regular tissues, this is just on a larger scale!

Take two pieces of tissue paper leave them together. Beginning at the short edge start ‘fan’ folding them at about 1 ½ inch intervals (no need to be precise!) until you get to the other edge. Fold it in half and cut it. Place the two halves together (stacking) and give it a good twist in the middle, then fold it up together. Tape this in the center to keep it from falling apart. Begin separating the two pieces of tissue paper, pulling it until it gives you resistance. Keep going, you can do it!! Go all the way across until you have separated all of it. It will make a fairly large bow. Once it is all fanned out, trim it if one side is longer than the other (if you wish) for the most part it should be just fine. Then you can tape it down to the top of your package.

So the next time a ‘gift day’ rolls around spend the few extra dollars on the gift rather than those pesky bags and using the items you have on hand wrap it yourself!! Take the time to take it out of the plastic bag it came in, throw a little newspaper, paper towels, notebook paper or toilet paper on the gift with a little tape and a little imagination you can surprise yourself and your ‘giftee’!!

On my way to give her the present I stopped at my local fabric shop and bought her a few ‘fat quarters’ of fabric, to get her started on her quest of quilting. Had I known that was what I was going to do I would have used the fabric to wrap her gift in!!

Did she love it? Absolutely! Because it was wrapped so creatively she almost didn’t want to open it!